I clicked on the data set I had collected. I had files that linked to other back-end files and then all I had to do was run the final analyses on two or three main interface sheets and we could get the results for the entire portfolio. 30 percent, 30 percent, that’s what I’m looking for.
The Ghana office improved their processing time by 12 percent, they increased their customer base by 7 percent.
I don’t remember more than 60 percent of my life.
The Austria team improved their customer retention by 54 percent; I need to factor in a multiplier of 0.35 on retention.
Ninety percent of the world is wishing they were with someone else, wishing they were somewhere else, that they were someone else. If all of them switched places, they would still be wishing for the same things.
The India office increased their customer base by 67 percent, but increased their product-loan disbursement by only 23 percent. The India office also saw a decline in their recovery of 5 percent.
Ninety-nine percent of us identify ourselves by our given names. But that’s not even who we are.
The Vietnam office reduced their effectiveness time by 15 percent; their outcome indicators show an enhanced performance of 7 percent.
I have spent 95 percent of my life doing things I didn’t want to do. I never know what I want to do.
If we got rid of all our memories, would we also get rid of all our hopes?
Pooja didn’t have too many aspirations in her life. She said she didn’t have a soul either. She said Deepak Chopra created the soul. When I first met her, with both of our families in their living room, she came out wearing a sari and carrying a tray full of teacups for all of us. I thought I was condemned to a life of boredom. But I didn’t mind. There isn’t much that excites me. The whole world is on reddit and Facebook anyway.
But then she went back to London to finish her degree and suggested we should meet. We met in Rome and then in Amsterdam. She was a tea maker in a sari; but in jeans she was a stoner. We were sitting in a café, both trapped by the wishes of our families but reconciled to the rest of our lives. Or so I thought. Behind us, the tower of Amsterdam Central scratched the sky. She was bent over the table, her fingers flying over the paper. Drop, drop the roasted hash. Drop, drop. Sprinkle tobacco . . . split cigarette open, empty its belly out. She finished making the joint and slid it along her tongue. She held it up. This is triumph. I scratched the lighter on and burnt the twisted tip. We could have been great together. Dry, I needed some Sprite.
Sprite. Cold and silver, rushing down my throat, maybe that waitress can help. She smiles, tucks her hair behind her ears. It’s razor-sharp blonde. Blonde is unreal. Touch? Don’t need to.
Pooja says I shouldn’t burn her if we end up staying together for a long time. I tell her about the cremations I have witnessed. Sometimes, when the fire is halfway through, the carcass sits up—the spine is twisted and props the head up. At least the face was charred through. If the mouth had smiled or said something, we would have all fainted. The helpers scramble around the pyre with iron rods and beat the body back on the wood. All is well again.
The dead need to stay well and truly dead. Only sometimes they should come back and sing Dylan.
Sprite, please. Heineken. Small, medium. The waitress tap-taps into a beeping pad; there must be numbers all in a row. No counting needed.
I suck on the joint. Pooja stretches her arms. In the middle of the V her face splits into a smile. I don’t know what love is. If I did, I could love her.
She looks happy. But she doesn’t know what joy is.
We should walk, I hear my voice. Where? Bulldog café, sit near the canal. We start to move. Across the road, a crowd is waiting for their fries. Ten minutes for potato. Twenty minutes to walk from the fries shop to the Van Gogh Museum. Fifteen minutes to get the perfect family photo for Facebook. I think I’m thinking, but actually I’m talking. The day rolls out in front of me. And then the rest of my life. It will keep going on and on, like those Outlook calendars you can keep scrolling down.
And you don’t want to scroll down the rest of your life? Now she’s talking.
I don’t have a choice, do I?
We sit down by the canal. This is good shit, isn’t it? Yes, uh-huh, both heads nod. It’s called Nepal Temple. Have you ever been there? No, I’ve only been to Darjeeling. Have you been to Bhutan? No, I’ve been to Assam.
We could go on forever. Again, it’s me speaking. Have you been to Bogota? No, I’ve been to Paris.
She laughs. But it’s a thin laugh, like she doesn’t have too many to spare.
There’s a boat on the canal. Women in hats, men in flowery shirts, one guy’s holding up a trumpet, another’s holding up a bong. They wave at people on the bridges.
Again I feel like I’m in a movie. I light another joint. The unfeeling protagonist. I tilt my chin. There is no mirror. Or the world is one. All the time. Inhale. Exhale with pursed lips. Turn away. I’m in a movie.
What do you think? she asks me. She orders two more beers.
This is nice.
No, I mean about us.
What about us?
We’re stuck together aren’t we, with our arranged marriage scene.
Looks like it, I said.
Would you like that?
It might be nice. And we both like some of the same things. I laugh.
What?
Nothing, you look pretty stoned.
Do I? She rubs her eyes.
What about you? I ask. Do you think this will work out, you and me?
I’m just so tired.
Yes, it’s been a long day.
Every day is too long.
Would you rather be with someone else?
No.
Same here. I can’t think of anyone. Then we’re okay?
I guess. She takes the joint from my hand. You know, like an Outlook calendar, I just can’t believe how much longer I have to go.
You don’t have to go anywhere.
I mean, how long do I have to travel through time?
You’re a time traveller?
We all are. We are born, then we live, and then we die.
She picks up a magazine. It has crumbs of weed sticking to it. Freida Pinto has some sticking out of her nose. Pooja points it out to me and laughs. One laugh less to spare.
What next? she asks me.
I don’t know. I suppose we get married next year? Our families chose the groom and the bride, so they can choose the date as well.
Yes, they can. We can get married, we’ll go seven times around the fire, throw some ghee into the flames. And then we’ll go to Paris for our honeymoon. If we want to be exotic, we could go to Kenya. You’ll get a promotion, I’ll get a job, one of those creative types. Maybe marketing, even journalism. I’ll break a story about corporate fraud or I’ll launch a new product that’ll capture 35 percent of the market.
What’re you talking about?
About time travelling. And then you’ll want a kid, or worse still I’ll want a kid because we have a car and the backseat just seems so large. So you’ll stop slipping on your condoms or I’ll get off the pill. We’ll have a child: Antara or Aarti? Abhimanyu or Arjun? Which do you prefer?
She keeps going on and on. The joint is over. I’m not annoyed, but I want her to stop talking about the future.
This is the life that happens to everyone, I say. You can’t be, I don’t know, Madonna or Frida Kahlo just because you think the ordinary is boring. Or you can be. You can start painting, you could start . . .
One day I’ll be old and I’ll feel my knees hurt. You’ll be impotent or I’ll be constantly tired. We would have had three and a half affairs each and lived in two cities for long periods of time.
Pooja, I say. I may say it a bit loudly. You don’t have to marry me. I’m fine with that. I’m in no hurry. We can go back to our hotel room and I can pick up my stuff and leave.
It’s not about you.
Then what is it? Dammit,
I don’t need this entire load.
It’s about my whole life. Any life I think of is no different from any other.
That’s not true.
I have always known it, she says. Even when I was a kid, I knew it. I should have just gone ahead in college and done it.
Done what?
Don’t you see? She’s talking with her mouth away from me. There is nothing inside and there is nothing in the end.
The joint had died in my hand. I want to say something. I want to say I agree. Maybe I say it. Maybe I say more: maybe I say that’s true, and even if we’re together, we’ll never ever know each other, and I could never help her, but she wasn’t expecting that anyway, was she? And there is only this life and these things that will fill our lives little by little, and we’ll take all the stupid stuff and think we’ve done something real. And then one day it’ll all come to a stop.
And that will be that.
Could you get the bill please? I’m not feeling too well, she says.
I step up and my body feels lighter at once. I walk to the bar, digging for the wallet in my pocket. Behind me, she ties her hair and walks to the canal.
I was in the smoking area behind the nonmetaphorical iron bars. I didn’t call Massimo; usually we go for our smoking breaks together. There was another guy smoking: he was a big bearded chap who always dressed in suits and Pulp Fiction-style narrow black ties. Also had crooked teeth.
I went back to my files and started running the tests again. I’m good with numbers. My favourite is sixty-nine.
I also like seven: sins and dwarves.
Anyway. Time to get to 30 percent. If I didn’t get this report like Markus wanted, during the next Looking Back, Leaping Forward session, he would make sure my balls were extracted out of the sack where they lie waiting for action.
Pooja was still sinking.
And I was looking for a stupid number.
Shit. I only got a 27 percent improvement.
I went down for another smoke. I couldn’t go and tell Markus the numbers weren’t adding up. That just wouldn’t do. Pulp Fiction man was still smoking downstairs. I’d never spoken to him. Often seen him ordering a glass of milk in the café in the morning. A giant in a black suit drinking milk. He could be an assassin or a Mafia enforcer: drinks his glass of milk, pays his bill, leaves a tip, and then pulls out a shotgun and proceeds to erase all forms of life in the café.
Fuck. And now I would lose my job in what? Three months.
I tried processing the data again. The results just wouldn’t change. I could round off a few percentages and get it up to 28 percent.
Are you on it? Markus keeps popping up, like a haemorrhoid.
Yes, absolutely.
And are we looking at 30 percent?
I think so.
I think so isn’t good enough, Krantik. You’re a professional. If I needed someone to guess what the numbers are like, I would have got an intern. Do you know how many people your age are earning your salary? I’ve told the MD we’re getting thirty. Don’t embarrass me.
Markus, we should have checked before promising our board.
Do we have a problem here? If you’re not up to the task, let me know. There are enough people out there who can do your job.
No, there’s no problem here.
Good. Because, you know, you Indians are good at doing tasks but not at taking responsibility. I want you to own this report. I want you to make this yours.
Absolutely. I love stereotypes that can cover a billion people.
All these numbers mean nothing. Every number is made up. Did Pooja count before jumping? One, two, and three, Go. Or did she count: 0.347, pi/3, root of 17, Go. Does Chiara count the lines she’s carved on her arms? Is forty-seven worse than thirty-five?
And then I had only half an hour left. I was taking the next day off: I had to drink the stomach cleansing fluid that evening and shit everything out. And then I had the colonoscopy the next day. I had told Chiara about the test. She was worried, but I told her it was just a routine checkup. But it was nice she worried.
I needed to start emptying my guts out soon to prepare.
Fuck this shit. Markus wants thirty, he’ll get thirty.
People should get what they want. Instagram pictures that look just like the 1920s, Facebook posts that all your friends like and most of them share (share this cute kid to stop napalm bombing in Peru, like this black man’s picture— the guy wearing a beret cap—because he’ll stop kidnapping kids then, share this potato for no reason), multiple orgasms without rabies and blow jobs from an androgynous Van Damme/Sharon Stone cyborg, climate change and polar bears in Central Park, rose petals kissed with morning dew, and Japanese men in gimp suits with Rihanna’s underwear stuffed in their mouths.
So I changed the numbers. I hiked up the Ghana office performance (those guys need a break, Africa Rising and all) and the Vietnam office indicators (I love that monk who’s sitting stone still while the fire swallows him whole, you’ve seen that crazy shit, right?).
And then I got 30. In fact I got 30.7 percent, just so it wouldn’t be too precise. Markus can impale himself on his pyramids while jerking off to this.
Floss your teeth, Markus, you have 30 percent.
Flex your bicep, suck in your abs, you have 30 percent.
You have 30 percent, congratulations: now your dick is two inches longer.
I saved the file and mailed it.
Only the servers were down. So the mail stayed on my system with a Confucius circle spinning round and round. I put the file on a pen drive and went to his office. Markus’s office, not Confucius’s (do you put another s after an apostrophe? I have no idea).
He saw the main sheet with 30.7 in bold purple lettering (I like bright choices in font colour).
You’re a rock star, did you know that?
I put my hands in my pocket, looking humble.
I mean, you’re like the love child of Slash and Hendrix. That’s how cool you are.
Is that from Fight Club too?
No, I made that up.
Cool.
Great stuff, Krantik. And perfect timing. I’m leaving soon, but I’ll take this with me and go over it in the morning. This is why you’re here. You’re here and you’re working with me because you are the future.
Thanks, Markus.
Have a fun break. Are you planning anything exciting?
No, the usual.
Aha, I know what that means. You’ll be sniffing coke off a hot girl’s boobs, won’t you?
Something like that.
I packed my stuff (that included the super-laxatives for my colon cleansing).
Pooja was still sinking. And since she dived, it has felt like she’s dragged me down too. Like I’m still tied to the bottom of the canal, too scared to set my feet down on the bottom, too weak to struggle and claw my way back to the top.
KIM KARDASHIAN
Purgatory. I don’t really know what the word means. I mean there are all these words that I read and I don’t really know what they mean. I always thought of purgatory as some kind of hellhole where you are stuck forever. But it also sounds like a place where you get purged. Cleaned out. Like an organic climate-positive wellness centre where you go to get your toxins flushed out.
Lugubrious. Again, I have no idea. Sounds like the soft edged in-and-out swishing of a well-lubricated ass. I mean lubricated with some deluxe Durex product.
Saturnine. Sitting still while the world goes crazy around you. Sixth rock from the sun, you’re so cool you even have rings around you like a whirling caravan of groupies.
Garrulous. Gables and ladies in dresses that bloom around their legs. Raising barns in Amish country in long hats.
Parsimonious. Just the right blend of spices. Pizza fresh off the wood oven and slicing straight and true under your knife.
Lemon. Lemonade. High as a kite. Heroin base.
Dichotomy. Castration.
I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew where
I was. Purgatory.
I had the colon-cleansing mixture in four large bottles in my fridge. Every fifteen minutes, I took a few swigs. And then I had to wait by the loo the whole evening. And I mean right next to the throne. Each volley of shit sent me crashing to the floor.
I chose a list of The Who songs to play on loop for a while: Pete Townshend’s windmilling his guitar like a maniac and Daltrey’s swinging his mike over the audience like a lasso.
Foetal. Curled, beginnings, endings.
I’m on the floor quivering. I’m being flushed out.
They say the moment before you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. Unspooling, like a tape you can’t play again. (I knew I wasn’t dying. I sound dramatic, but I can be cold and calculating sometimes, totally plugged into what’s happening, but creating alternative narratives because why the hell not.)
I don’t know what’s inside me. Tomorrow, the doctor will sedate me and turn me sideways and then slowly insert a long telescope pipe into my anus. It’s ten feet long. Maybe only colonoscopy surgeons have seen the soul snuck away inside our intestines.
Is that it? The surgeon’s assistant asks, bent over my curled body and peering into my ass. No, that’s just his Facebook profile picture. See: he’s holding a goblet of Belgian beer. Okay.
What’s that? That’s him in his office, note the dull reflection in his eyes: that’s the life he had dreamed of.
Then they see Markus standing over me. Massimo talking about his dad. We are the generation that have lost our parents but have found Facebook, he says. We’re smoking a joint, then we’re in a club and we’re jumping because the bass just got louder, our arms are in the air; then I’m on a plane and I’m a praying atheist because 5,000 tonnes of metal is climbing into the sky; then I’m at university and we’re sitting around half-finished cups of coffee, someone’s talking about a disastrous date, we’re all laughing and leaning back against our chairs because our stomachs hurt; I’m holding tingling cricket bats and girls are standing around and watching; a walk in the rain with a girl who might like me but I don’t like her; family dinners with the TV on and picnics with the radio playing Kishore Kumar; listening to Dylan while solid fingers pluck strings in front of me; my first fumbling kiss; and a fight with my sister when we were kids and we gave each other the evil eye for the next week.
No Direction Rome Page 11